


The Flame and the Kindling

by MeinongsJungleBook



Series: Black Flame Rising [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Abuse of the Mentally Ill, Bad Romance, Death, Depression, Dystopias, Grieving, Mental Illness, Other, Religious Fanaticism, Worldbuilding, but boy is it fun, cannibalism mention, exploitation of the mentally ill, lobotomy mention, starvation mention, this is my own take on Shattered Glass based more heavily on the IDW continuity, very bad romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-04 22:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15850248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeinongsJungleBook/pseuds/MeinongsJungleBook
Summary: Windblade of Caminus tries to unravel the enigma of Cybertron's leader so that she may know how she will destroy him.





	The Flame and the Kindling

**Author's Note:**

> For Windscream Week Day 6 - Shattered Glass. 
> 
> This one is set in an alternative version of Shattered Glass that is based more heavily on the IDW continuity, and is vaguely inspired by a tumblr post that doesn’t appear to exist anymore.
> 
> EDIT 09/06/2019: I've made a few edits to this fic - mainly I've changed all instances of "spark" to "ember", because I remembered that in SG bots have embers instead of sparks, and I've added an extra sentence referencing an event I intend to expand upon in a later fic.

Windblade was a connoisseur of the unravelled mind. An intimate understanding of insanity was the most essential part of being a Cityspeaker, given the state of poor, dear Caminus, with his body twisted and strewn agonisingly over the surface of their world, and his children suckling every ounce of energon they could from him without _quite_ killing him. Of course, there were many who claimed that Caminus was already mad before any of that, but presumably his subsequent dismemberment and exploitation hadn’t helped matters. Unfortunately the brain of a mad Titan tended to be difficult to make good use out of, and the emberlings of Caminus weren’t done with him yet. That’s where Cityspeakers such as Windblade came in, scholars of madness who learnt how to interpret his insane ramblings, and then to trick, cajole and threaten him into doing what the Mistress needed him to do.

It was an extremely perilous vocation; the final challenge before they were given their paint was to link directly to the mind of Caminus himself, and only the very best students passed this test. Most had their brain modules melted by the overwhelming vastness of the Titan’s mind, and many others were swept up by his madness and driven irrevocably insane themselves. In fact, part of the practice for linking with Caminus involved linking with the minds of would-be Cityspeakers who had been infected with the Titan’s madness, in order to have a little taster of what the real thing would be like.

It was all worth it however, as successfully becoming a Cityspeaker meant entering into the Camien Elite. Unless Primus had blessed them with a particularly exceptional alt-mode, all emberlings of Caminus were released into the slums and the wilds to fend for themselves as soon as their frames had finished solidifying, where the weak ones were quickly picked off to be cannibalised in the desperation for energon and parts. The stronger peasantry could survive for perhaps a few millennia at best before they would inevitably succumb to starvation or disrepair. Unless one could somehow find a way off world, the only ways out were to either become a servant to the Elite, or to become part of the Elite itself. To offer oneself up to train as a Cityspeaker was one such way to potentially join the ranks of the Elite and enjoy all the luxuries and privileges that station afforded.

This was the path that Windblade had chosen, and when the time had come to link with Caminus, she had been swallowed in his immensity and insanity, and she did not succumb to his madness, but rather to her own awe at his sublime and epic power. Then she breached the surface of his mind, and she survived, just had she had survived her years in the slums fighting for scraps of metal and drops of energon. Windblade always survived.

As a Cityspeaker, Windblade had proven herself to be among the strong, and she was rightly rewarded for it. Life in the Elite was a luxurious one, with energon to spare, and servants to provide a variety of entertainment. Most of Caminus’s resources went to the Elite, but that in itself was not sufficient, so they had taken to stripping other worlds of their resources. Caminus’s population was small, as their Titan’s fecundity was weak, so they couldn’t produce mighty armies to challenge more advanced worlds, so instead they were stuck picking off primitive planets, the only energon they could generally hope to derive from them coming from converting the organic populations with pink alchemy. But Cybertron, and its endless fount of energon, was fabled to be out there, and one day The Mistress of Flame gave her the honour of searching for it.

Windblade found it, because she wouldn’t have allowed herself to fail such a pilgrimage. When she arrived she instantly recognised the signs of mental breakdown in its leader, and smiled knowing that Solus had blessed her crusade; she was here to make Cybertron fall to Caminus, and it already had a leader ripe for her manipulations.

Windblade was fascinated to learn of the four million year war that had preceded her arrival. Much of Cybertron’s current citizenry were dull neutrals who had run away from it, but she sought out the veterans who hid themselves away in bars and listened with rapt attention to their stories about this mighty conflict. Four million years of war that had almost wiped out the entire population, and by the War Hammer of Solus Prime, what a crucible that must have been! Truly that must have separated the strong from the weak; these veterans would most surely have to be the worthy and strong. Fortunately the veterans were vastly outnumbered and diluted by these weak neutrals, otherwise Windblade feared that even she would be unable to sufficiently weaken Cybertron for Caminus’s domination.

The Cybertronian leader, Starscream, was one of these veterans, and Windblade wondered if his unravelling mental health was an outcome of the aeons of war he had endured. If she was to bring Cybertron to his knees, being able to manipulate and undermine its leader would be key, so Windblade used all her talents to wheedle her way into favour and confidence. He was…interesting. Among the Elite on Caminus it was expected that one would treat their peers with a certain degree of decorum, but while Starscream was certainly respectful, there was something else about the way that he treated her. He treated her with…what was the word? Kindness? Yes, that was it. There was a sad kindness to his nature that Windblade wasn’t sure what to make of. When she arrived on Cybertron and fed him the lie that she and her serf were the last surviving refugees of a lost and now annihilated colony, and offered him her servitude in exchange for sanctuary, he gave her not only sanctuary, but sympathy, and comforts she never had to bargain for.

He treated everyone with this kindness; all these neutrals under his dominion, who had run away from the war, for some reason he was concerned for their welfare, worried about meeting their needs as though they deserved energon purely for existing! There were even bots among the populous who had been his enemies during the war, who openly disrespected him, and instead of destroying them, Starscream protected them and kept them fed!

Windblade just didn’t understand; sure, Cybertron had much more energon than Caminus, so it was actually possible to keep the entire population fuelled (an idea that boggled Windblade’s mind), but scarcity alone wasn’t the only reason resources on Caminus were reserved for the few. Their Prime taught them that all life should burn in the forge of adversity so that the weak slag would melt away while the strong and worthy would be forged into their true shape. That was The Way of Flame. Starscream had survived the crucible of a four million year war; clearly he was among the strong and worthy, so how could he not understand this fundamental truth of the universe?

Starscream had so much power at his fingertips, yet so much reluctance to use it. He even had his own Titan, an intact, sane, and almost healthy one at that, yet when Windblade offered to use her talents to break it in so that it would be completely submissive to his will he seemed horrified at the notion. Ultimately, Windblade was glad that Starscream hadn’t agreed to her offer to lobotomise and condition Metroplex, for when she did get the opportunity to finally link with him she was overwhelmed by the terrifying and sublime power of a sharp and intact Titan mind. He could have easily destroyed her if he hadn’t found her to be genuine when she told him that she would use her talents to return him to full health. She didn’t want to destroy such a magnificently powerful creature, she wanted to _emulate_ it.

Windblade investigated Starscream’s past in the hopes of understanding him, and then destroying him. She learnt that he had been the Second in Command of one of the war’s factions, before gaining leadership of the newly restored Cybertron soon after the war’s recent end. She heard many stories of his heroism throughout the war, but none of this information really made him any less enigmatic to her. Fortunately, Starscream seemed to have few people to confide in, which made it easy to get close to him. She took advantage of his loneliness to set herself up as the one he could turn to for some light conversation and gentle banter before he retired to the solitude of his chambers each recharge cycle. He liked to talk about such silly little things and make such nonsense jokes, it was…strangely charming.

To further gain his confidence she helped him achieve his goals, or at least those that didn’t conflict with her own, and joined him on a number of his political expeditions, which tended to deliver them into dangers that Windblade found quite thrilling. There came a point on one such expedition where it seemed that Mortilus had decided Windblade’s crusade would end with her goals unattained, but before her ember could be snuffed out, Starscream saved her, at great peril to himself. She wasn’t _that_ useful to him, yet he had risked his life to save hers. Windblade…didn’t know how she felt about this. She'd seen a Titan die that day; a holy leviathan had died in front her while she had lived, and the thing she couldn't stop thinking about was that Starscream was the reason for her survival.

She started to notice that Starscream was often throwing himself into danger in such a way, like he didn’t care if he lived or died. On one of these occasions it looked like he was indeed about to meet his death, and Windblade realised that if he died she would have to start all over again to gain the confidence of his replacement, so she rushed to his rescue. As death approached him he looked so resigned to it, but when Windblade swooped in to save him that expression was replaced with shock, then a strange mix of emotions, like he wasn’t sure how he felt that he wasn’t dead after all, then finally he looked at her with a genuine and thankful smile. It made her ember feel odd.

Eventually, after a day where his quiet sadness had seemed especially pronounced, he confided in her that he didn’t want to be Cybertron’s leader, that he had never wanted to be a leader, but he had to, because Cybertron needed him. He told her that he had felt lost, empty and purposeless ever since his former leader, Megatron, had seemingly betrayed the cause they’d fought for together for millions of years, and then died shortly afterwards. Then the floodgates opened, and Starscream launched into impassioned tale about Megatron the Great Defender, who had shown him that the world could be better, who had fought for him, and fought for Cybertron, who had given his life a meaning it had never before possessed. For _hours_ he spoke about Megatron with a level of adulation that rivalled even the reverence Camiens had for The Mistress of Flame, who was ignited from the ember of Solus Prime herself.

“But then, at the very end of everything, he betrayed us, he betrayed everything we stood for. And… _no_ , I _know_ it wasn’t what it seemed. I was his…confidant for millions of years, I knew him intimately, I know it makes no sense for him to do what he did. It had to of been some sort of trick or…or _something_. But now he’s d-dead and I can’t ask him _why_ ,” Starscream’s voice cracked. “Windblade I…I want to do what I know he would want me to do, to lead Cybertron with his ideology but…as stupid as it is, part of me isn’t even sure what that ideology really is anymore. And I… _I miss him_ ,” Starscream started to sob. “I-I’m s-sorry. It’s just been so _hard_. Everything…without him. I’ve been starting to find myself thinking that I don’t even know if I care anymore. About… _anything._ About Cybertron. About whether or not I’m even alive. It’s horrible. I just…want something – _someone_ – to believe in again.”

Starscream looked at her, and it was then that Windblade understood with perfect clarity how she would break him. Starscream had lost his purpose, and he was looking to her for a new one. And she would give him one, she would fill the void left behind by Megatron and then she would be the one to receive that awe and devotion like she herself was ignited from the ember of a goddess. It would all be hers, hers, _hers_. She seized upon him and kissed him fiercely, and after freezing for a moment, he melted into her touch, surrendering to the ferocity of her fire. _Yes_ , now that she had conquered him, Cybertron would be soon to follow. She would deliver Cybertron to the Mistress of Flame and her glory and the glory of Caminus would be eternal.

But then a thought occurred to Windblade – an incredibly blasphemous, _seductive_ thought. She was now worshipped like the Mistress herself; she had a world overflowing with energon and populated by warriors forged in a four million year war; she had a _Titan_ that would soon be able to fight. Windblade had thought that her forging had been completed when she’d earned her Cityspeaker paint, but no, it was on Cybertron that finally solidified into her true shape. Why should she bend the knee to a bot that had been ignited from the ember of Solus, when she felt like she was the second coming of Solus herself? With Starscream at her side as her worshipful devotee she would take Cybertron, then Caminus, and then the universe. He fuelled her fire, and soon that fire would consume everything.


End file.
